Against all odds, it looks like the humble stylus is making its way back to the into the mobile computing world and we've got seven in our roundup competing for the title of Stylus Supreme. With 5 generic styli, we'll be looking at the Stabilo SMARTball, Wacom Bamboo Stylus, Maroo Te Kao, Mediadevil Magic Wand and Proporta Quillit. We'll also be looking at two device specific styli as well, the HTC Flyer battery powered prodder and the Samsung Galaxy Note's S-Pen. Long gone are the scratchy scrapes of resistive screen pressing plastic pokers, this roundup is about quality pen replacements so here goes:

Proporta Quillit

With its metallic sheen and 3-in-1 functionality, Proporta's Quillit stylus is both a capacitive and resistive stylus as well as a pen. It looks perfectly respectable for an office environment so could be the perfect pointer when demonstrating presentations on your iPad, avoiding finger prints and working well in the process.

The capacitive stylus section is in fact a brush at the rear and replaces a finger well for tasks which don't require huge amounts of precision. That said, as with all our multi-device capacitive styli, accuracy is lacking making handwriting and drawing a challenge. Being a brush, it can also skew to one direction, we found ourselves retracting and extending it to straighten it out every now and then.

Twist the Proporta's front end one way to make the pen emerge from its tip and the other for the resistive stylus. The pen is a standard ball-point. Not the greatest we've used and neither is it the worst, it definitely gets better once broken in. As for the resistive stylus, it worked very well indeed.

At £24.99, the Proporta Quillit stylus is certainly not the cheapest on test, with its most immediate competitor, the Stabilo SMARTball coming in at £7.99. Still, if you work across resistive and capacitive devices, this is a worthwhile buy, definitely bettering Stabilo's offering in terms of stylus quality, functionality and design.

Stabilo SMARTball

Multi-function on a budget, the Stabilo SMARTball is a simple plastic number that bears both a biro and stylus, one on either end. It's light and perfect for a day to day pen and at £7.99 is affordable too.

As with a most things you do get what you pay for. The Stabilo is definitely the weakest stylus in our roundup. It would on occasion not register touches and requirs the firmest press. Generally though, after a few minutes of use, we became accustomed to pressing a little harder, despite this not feeling totally natural on a capacitive screen, especially one as responsive as the iPad or the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime.

The Stabilo SMARTball is therefore the multi-function for the now-and-then stylus user rather than those who sees themselves using their stylus as a primary means of interacting with their mobile device.

Wacom Bamboo stylus

We have high hopes for the Wacom stylus given Wacom's mastery of pen input technology across their graphics tablet range. That said, in the Wacom Bamboo stylus you won't find 1000+ degrees of pressure sensitivity, no, it's totally traditional with a rubber tipped jotter sporting a rich matted body and an elegant metallic top end.

That said, something does separate this stylus from the crowd, the iPad app, Bamboo Paper. This works noticeably better with the Bamboo stylus' softer tip for some very comfortable pinch, zoom, jot, write, zoom out note taking. It is one of the best stylus apps we've used making digital notepad creation a doddle.

If you're an Android user, don't discount the Bamboo stylus as an iPad exclusive just yet though. In fact, it was our favourite of the bunch with its softer, more sensitive tip and matte finish, even when using it on a range of Android devices. At £24.99, it is the priciest of the single function styli so that might put some off but the Wacom Bamboo stylus definitely comes with a recommendation from us.

The Maroo Te Kao

Most comparable to the Wacom Bamboo stylus in terms of form factor, Maroo's Te Kao is a single function conductive tipped sleek black stylus. Glossy finish but not slippery, it looks elegant and sits comfortably in the hand. It's somewhere in between the Stabilo and Wacom styli in terms of firmness of the tip, offering a comfortable experience without too heavy handed a press being needed to register a touch.

The Maroo Te Kao is also the lightest stylus on test discounting the S-Pen making for very little impression in a pocket or a bag, however it still manages to feel solid and is comfortably weighted when using it.

Costing $14.99 in the States, this is certainly a reasonably priced, elegant stylus, and is probably our choice if you've got an Android tablet and dont want to spend almost £30 on a Wacom Bamboo stylus.

Mediadevil Magic Wand

Performing almost identically to the Maroo Te Kao, except offering a semi-matte finish and a choice of colours, the Mediadevil Magic Wand would be the one to go for if you wanted a choice of fun block colours or an iPad-centric stylus that wasn't quite as costly as Wacom's Bamboo.

Slightly less responsive than the other two single-function styli in tests, the Mediadevil still trumped both multi-functions in terms of specific stylus use. What's really cool about it however is the lanyard that plugs to stylus into your 3.5mm headphone jack. This stows the stylus when not being used which is a really nice touch. We might be concerned about putting it in a bag attached to our tab in fear of scratching or damaging, however still like the option it gives users.

So if you're into fun colours, are concerned about losing your stylus and don't tend to use your 3.5mm headphone jack, for a similar price to Maroo's offering, the Mediadevil, while slightly less elegant does have its own appeal.

Samsung Galaxy Note S-Pen

The pocketable Picasso of the bunch is the Samsung Galaxy Note S-Pen. The level of precision on it is fantastic and with a couple of downloads such as Sketchbook Mobile, you can draw and doodle to great effect. Check out this eye we churned out to the right.

It's a little on the slim side to be comfortable drawing or writing with for periods in excess of twenty minutes, however slots neatly into the back of the Samsung Galaxy Note so its slenderness can definitely be justified. It's also amongst the best for handwriting, bettering all the generic styli and only loosing out the the HTC Flyer with its bigger screen and grippier pen's form factor.

So if you're about to get a device and know you'll want to write, doodle or annotate, this is the only pocketable choice out there right now. It's just going to get better with improved S-Pen app support and in its current state is pretty fantastic.

The HTC Flyer Digital Pen

With its 7-inch screen and most sizable stylus, the HTC Flyer's offering as a stylus-centric device has improved ten fold since it was released onto the market last year. While originally, the pen had very constricted functionality, now, HTC have Honeycombed things up and unleashed the stylus to entirely replace a finger should you want it to.

In turn, the HTC Flyer is now infinitely more compelling than it was at launch. Writing across HTC apps and third party apps is a precise breeze, it is considerably more spacious than the Samsung Galaxy Note and the pen is a nice, chunky tool for you to wield at will sitting comfortably in the hand for long durations.

The tablet version of Sketchbook was a dream to use on the HTC Flyer with a bout of snow and train delays resulting in a pretty enjoyable session of drawing goofy anime blondes. Here's one example below as well as a ten minute eye we threw together:

What the HTC Flyer and the Samsung Galaxy Note do is illustrate just how much of a difference bespoke, device specific styli make. We prefer the Flyer in terms of stylus support and wish it had this kind of functionality when released. That said, it does now and prices are only going down with the latest offers putting the tablet as low as £234 at Expansys, so if in need of a slate and you're planning on writing or drawing a la digital, the Flyer should definitely be a contender.

Conclusion

So that wraps up our multi-function, single-function and single-device stylus roundup. What have we learnt? Bespoke, device specific styli make for the most precise drawing and writing tools (See Samsung Galaxy Note and HTC Flyer), iPad users should definitely consider the Wacom Bamboo stylus / Bamboo Paper app combination, the Maroo Te Kao is great value and when it comes to multi-function, you definitely get what you pay for with the Proporta Quillit out-performing the Stabilo Smart Ball.

If you've got any questions about any specific products on test, let us know.